we know, made a mighty stand against verbal insincerities, with one striking exception,—­the use of the word “Friend.”  They said and believed that this word represented their attitude towards humanity, their spirit of universal tolerance and brotherhood.  But if to call oneself a “Friend” is to emphasize one’s amicable relations towards one’s neighbour, to call one’s neighbour “Friend” is to imply that he returns this affectionate regard, which is often an unwarranted assumption.  It is better and more logical to accept all the polite phraseology which facilitates intercourse, and contributes to the sweetness of life.  If we discarded the formal falsehoods which are the currency of conversation, we should not be one step nearer the vital things of truth.

For to be sincere with ourselves is better and harder than to be painstakingly accurate with others.  A man may be cruelly candid to his associates, and a cowardly hypocrite to himself.  He may handle his friend harshly, and himself with velvet gloves.  He may never tell the fragment of a lie, and never think the whole truth.  He may wound the pride and hurt the feelings of all with whom he comes in contact, and never give his own soul the benefit of one good knockdown blow.  The connection which has been established between rudeness and probity on the one hand, and politeness and insincerity on the other, is based upon an imperfect knowledge of human nature.

   “So rugged was he that we thought him just,
    So churlish was he that we deemed him true.”

“It is better to hold back a truth,” said Saint Francis de Sales, “than to speak it ungraciously.”

There are times doubtless when candour goes straight to its goal, and courtesy misses the mark.  Mr. John Stuart Mill was once asked upon the hustings whether or not he had ever said that the English working-classes were mostly liars.  He answered shortly, “I did!”—­and the unexpected reply was greeted with loud applause.  Mr. Mill was wont to quote this incident as proof of the value which Englishmen set upon plain speaking.  They do prize it, and they prize the courage which defies their bullying.  But then the remark was, after all, a generalization.  We can bear hearing disagreeable truths spoken to a crowd or to a congregation—­causticity has always been popular in preachers—­because there are other heads than our own upon which to fit the cap.

The brutalities of candour, the pestilent wit which blights whatever it touches, are not distinctively American.  It is because we are a humorous rather than a witty people that we laugh for the most part with, and not at, our fellow creatures.  Indeed, judged by the unpleasant things we might say and do not say, we should be esteemed polite.  English memoirs teem with anecdotes which appear to us unpardonable.  Why should Lady Holland have been permitted to wound the susceptibilities of all with whom she came in contact?  When Moore tells us that she said to him, “This book of yours” (the “Life of Sheridan”) “will be dull, I fear;” and to Lord Porchester, “I am sorry to hear you are going to publish a poem.  Can’t you suppress it?” we do not find these remarks to be any more clever than considerate.  They belong to the category of the monumentally uncouth.